Newsletter Date Volume 1, Issue 1

This would be a good place to insert a short paragraph about your organization. It might include the purpose of the organization, its mission,

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

ENT 300th .............................. 1

Township History ................... 2

Our 300th .............................. 3

Gardening ............................... 4

Junior Supervisor ................... 5

Calendar .................................. 6

BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

• Chairman, Joe Herlihy

• Vice-Chairman, John Wallace

• Supervisor, Sam Goodley, Jr.

• Supervisor, Art Rieck

• Supervisor, Bill Weaver

EAST NOTTINGHAM TOWNSHIP SPRING 2019 NEWSLETTER

~ 300th Anniversary Edition ~

SENATOR DINNIMAN 300TH CITATION

Consider writing for us. Do you

have an interesting township story

you would like to share? Please

contact our Township Secretary at

secretary@zoominternet.net

SOME TOWNSHIP HISTORY ~ THE NOTTINGHAM LOTS

THE NOTTINGHAM LOTS— as we

know, Chester County actually began as

an appreciatory “gift of deed” from King

Charles II to William the son of Sir Wil-

liam Penn out of “regard to the memory

and merits of his late father”. Now Wil-

liam (Jr.) had already been aware of the

settlement possibilities of land between

the colonies of Maryland and Connecti-

cut and was busy cobbling together his

plans for a great Quaker based settle-

ment colony. Between 1681 and 1682

Penn received the lands lying North

of Maryland and South of New York

Colony. In addition, The Duke of

York sold what is now Delaware

(called the lower three counties of the

colony the Crown called)

“Pennsylvania”.

William Penn also began purchasing

lands from the Indigenous Susque-

hannock people. Thus in 1682 (or

1683, as history is unclear of the ex-

act dates), Penn acquired the

“Nottingham Lots” from the native

people and continued to amass their

lands to the west to accrete to his

growing colony. We must remember

that this area was the western wilder-

ness boundary of Great Britain’s territo-

ry and future acquisition by Penn inter-

ests would be accomplished by trading,

purchase, or actual fraudulent self-

dealing mostly with the Native Peo-

ples. The “Nottingham Tract” (later

called the Lots) consisted of 18000

acres 37 lots of 500 acres each and

to confuse it further, these lot

boundaries were never surveyed till

years later. Settlers began to arrive

in 1701 and the lots were divvied up

among the colonists and they deed-

ed to the Quaker Church “the com-

mons” required by the Quaker lead-

ership.

Thus one can see a boundary dis-

pute in the making. Both William

Penn and (the then) Lord Baltimore

returned to England to basically plead with the King that

the other guy was stealing his border land. (Maryland had a

better argument since their 1632 charter described their

land boundaries near 40 degrees latitude (closer to Phila-

delphia), but in 1685 James II gave Penn a piece of proper-

ty that drew Philadelphia into the Pennsylvania column of

land acquisitions.

Actually, when we look at it analytically, Penn was using

the Nottingham Lots as a bargaining chip before the crown,

since he laid them out and described their boundaries, they

have to lay in Pennsylvania, right?

Fortunately, at the same time, Lord Baltimore was more

interested in the stabilization of his own border with Vir-

ginia so the strip of land (later surveyed by Mason and

Dixon) was for 50 years, left as an uncontested boundary.

However, as it turned out by Mason and Dixon’s almost

obsessive survey description, Maryland wound up with

most of the 18000 acres and only 1300 acres of the Not-

tingham Lots remained in Chester County. Less than 500

acres of the original lots lies in our township.

How much did a lot cost? From PA records from 1701,

Every 100 acres would cost us 8 pounds sterling,

with an additional” quitrent” of one shilling

FOREVER. (A quitrent is an agricultural land

rent that relieves the renter from serving as a

soldier).

The FRIENDS laid out a log road that connected with

the main road from Philadelphia to Chester,

Kennett Square, New London, then Nottingham

The first two settlers in the Nottingham Lots were two

brothers and their families. They were accompa-

nied by William Penn who, carved out a 50 acre

tract for the first Nottingham Meeting House,

school, and burial land (the original Brick Meet-

ing House in Calvert Maryland , which was origi-

nally within East Nottingham township before

Mason and Dixon’s survey)

The first thirty years of settlement of the Lots saw

mostly clearing, building of homes, building the

meeting house, and completing several trades-

men’s shops. The first homes were called

“Beehives” (the home types can be seen at today’s

“Beehive historical site along the Little Elk Creek

near Fair Hill Maryland).

The fact that confuses the actual location of the histor-

ical Nottingham and their place on state maps is

that Mason and Dixon required the state bound-

aries to be altered quite a bit. The resulting effect

was that the town of Nottingham was moved

once, The town of Brick Meetinghouse was

changed to Calvert because the Post Office felt

that the name of the town was just too long..

While East Nottingham had a very small piece

of the Nottingham Lots, our township history

was conceivably based upon William Penn

and his land manager’s desires to acquire and

extend the metes and bounds of all Pennsylva-

nia. But apparently most of our state’s growth

began within a 25 mile radius about us.

2

Brick Meeting House or “Friends

Meeting House” is located just a few

minutes away in Maryland at 1 Brick

Meetinghouse Rd, Rising Sun, MD

Back on October 13th, 2018 during the Oxford Main Street Car Show, East Nottingham Township celebrated

our 300th Birthday at the Oxford Main Streets Car show along with West Nottingham Township.

~ K I D S Z O N E ~

WORD SCRAMBLE

3

PHOSWTNI

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MTTIHANNOG

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FXROOD

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EMPRIT

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NOZNIG

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SODMAATRER

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NAIRCHMA

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UPVSIORRSE

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CIRDNOANE

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ARBDO

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NCETOLEI

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ANSWER KEY:

Township, Nottingham, Oxford,

Permit, Zoning, Roadmaster, Chair-

man, Supervisor. Ordinance, Board,

Election

East Nottingham Townships

300th Birthday Celebration

First day of Spring, our trucks are all cleaned up from the snow and salt.

TELEPHONE DIRECTORY

Jordan Bank School—610-

932-6625

Nottingham School—610-932-

6632

Elk Ridge School—610-932-

6670

Penns Grove Middle—610-932

-6615

Oxford Area High—610-932-

6640

Avondale Police 610-268-2022

Oxford Fire Co. 610-932-2411

Oxford Library 610-932-9625

Poison Control—800-722-7112

Alcoholics Anonymous 610-

644-9675

Domestic Violence 610-431-

1430

Crisis Intervention 610-918-

2100

Prescription Drug / Heroin

Hotline 800-662-HELP

Suicide Prevention Hotline

800-273-8255

Chester County Hospital 610-

431-5000

Jennersville Hospital 610-869-

1000

PA ONE CALL 800-242-1776

Chester County Health Dept.

610-869-0560

Chester County Senior Citizen

Services 610-431-4242

Oxford Area Senior Center 610

-932-5244

PennDot RE: Roads https://

customercare.penndot.gov/

2019 EARLY SEASON GARDENING

Here we are, entering the gardening season for calendar 2019. Hopefully your activity has already begun for the year. All your seeds

should have been selected and the following veggies are already in the ground or are started in seed starter pots.

I’ll use me as an example. Here is what I have already done this season:

OVERWINTERING VEGGIES—I have cleaned the fall leaves and dead plant material out of my raised garden beds (since 2015 I

have shifted all my veggie gardening to raised bed boxes. I now have 12, 4’X 8’X10” cypress board raised beds) I have devoted 3 boxes

to overwintered crops that include:

1 box contains 18 strawberry plants that should bear profusely this year.

1 box contains 2 separate crops, each occupying 16 square feet devoted to spinach and 16 square feet devoted to onions. Both

crops really do well by sowing spinach seed and onion sets in the mid fall. I like sewing these veggies in early October so

the plants can develop good root systems and toughen up for the winter. I have been overwinter planting my spinach

for about 10 years and in my estimation it’s the best way to assure getting large spinach salad leaves by late April. This

is only my second year where I have overwintered onions so it’s still a method being researched.

I have cleaned up the other boxes and am beginning to “re-top” these beds with a mixture of potting soil and composted manure. (I

am a bit late on finishing all these and I got caught in that mind numbing cold of late January of the new year.

EARLY SEEDING. — I will within the February/March time accomplish the following seeding:

I plan to direct seed my PEA POD seeds by late February. Some of my Amish neighbors attest to sowing their pea pods and

pea seeds in mid-February and cover with compost, and another seeding in mid-March, “Just Before St. Patrick’s Day”.

Peas should be side dressed with a balanced fertilizer that is not Nitrogen rich or else you will have beautiful tall plants

but few peas.

I will do another setting of SPRING ONION sets and SPANISH ONION sets. I either buy the Spanish onions as seedlings or I

start them as seed in mid-December. This year I am using seedlings from a local nursery.

I will sow MESCULEN GREENS, LETTUCE, and COLLARDS in by mid-March (St. Patty’s day is a good early garden starting

date for beginners).

MID SEASON SEEDING –

I start my TOMATOES as seeds and no matter what each year I have

difficulty in making up my mind about which tomato varieties I

want to grow. All my tomato seeds are started in deep starter

kits in my garage using LED lighting (daylight bulbs). I buy new

varieties and have been saving non-hybrid seeds for several

decades for some special varieties, like my Aunts seeds that

were brought from the Ukraine during one of her visits to the

“Family Homeland”.

I will start my seeds by mid-February and after several repotting’s and

“selection episodes”, I’ll have about 8 plants that I will set out in

a bed. A note on tomatoes in case you’re a rookie. DO NOT

plant tomatoes, peppers, eggplants or potatoes over areas that

were used for plants of this family (the SOLENACIOUS VEG-

GIES) the year before. We should plan so that we’ve got at least

a year that include none of these plants in the same spot. It

could affect their ability to ward off stuff like “early blight” or

“die off”. BE AWARE. We plan to set our tomato plants into the

garden by early May.

LETTUCES-I will set out several plantings of lettuce plants. I like to

choose plants that I know are grown by local seed growers and

I’ll ask whether they grow their own or buy their started sets

through a catalog. Local is best and some starter sets sold by Big

Box stores had been implicated in powder mildews several years

back.

ASPARAGUS--We love our homegrown asparagus and have about 10 senior plants that were it not for some big maple trees

they would be in a perfect spot to live for a century or more. However, this year I’ll have to replant a new asparagus

line into a more permanently sunny spot where I will prepare a deep trench to accept the new plants. I will do this by

late March or early April. Our existing plants have at least another decade before they start being overshadowed and

will begin to decline. It takes about 3 years to establish a line

of asparagus and each year a good cleanup of the plant bed

is an excellent idea. I usually top-off the cleaned beds with a

nitrogen rich mulch and do some pH adjustment with a

“lime rickey” of Calcium Magnesium water before the

ground freezes in December.

BEANS-(all varieties) are a puzzle to me. I can’t get them to

be an early season plant at all, so I don’t even try, that’s my

advice and if anyone has news to the contrary, I’m a good

listener!

CORN-Sweet corn has taken to be an early season crop quite

well. However, in an area where so many vegetable farmers

grow such magnificent varieties of sweet corn, I say, what’s

the point? Their quality and value are so great, I am not

going to waste garden space on stuff like sweet corn, pota-

toes or even pumpkins.

I will provide some more opinions about local gardening in the next issue. If you have any ideas that you would like to share about

gardening please let me know. You can get me through the township e-mail. ~ WALT LEIS

4

Our objective in establishing the junior supervisor program is to inspire young people in the township to become more involved with local government by giving them the opportunity to gain insights into hove local government functions and learn about the duties of local government.

My name is Elizabeth Estes and I am honored to be serving as the East Nottingham

Township Junior Supervisor for the upcoming year. First and foremost I’d like to say

thank you to the board members and the community for allowing me this oppor-

tunity as well as Judge Massey for presenting me with the honor of being sworn in.

Secondly, I’d like to introduce myself. I am a junior at Oxford Area High School and

an active member of my school community. I participate in cross country and track,

as well as clubs like Student council, helping hands, interact, the Chester county

student forum, National Honor Society, and my personal favorite, Future Business

Leaders of America. FBLA was first to spark my interest in business and government

and i trust that I’ll have the opportunity to utilize skills I have learned through the

club in my position as junior Township Supervisor. I have lived in East Nottingham

for all 16 years of my life. This is where I have gone to school, made friends, lost my

first tooth, and learned how to drive. In every sense of the word, it s my home. I

hope that through this position I can give back to this community, even if it is a

fraction of what the community has given me over the years. The main goal that I

hope to accomplish in my upcoming months as junior Supervisor is to provide in-

sight regarding the concerns of my peers that could be beneficial to the communi-

ty. I hope to find ways to connect the different spheres within the Township that I

am a part of in order to aid in the improvement of the community. I plan to devel-

op a clean up project to help reduce litter that takes away from the health and

natural beauty of our environment. I also hope to gain insight from other teenagers

in my school as well as the general public as to what they’d like to see to further

improve our

community and

implement those

ideas in a second

project. In short, I

am elated to

have the oppor-

tunity to serve

WELCOME OUR FIRST JUNIOR TOWNSHIP SUPERVISOR,

ELIZABTH ESTES

ELIZABETH’S SPEECH:

5

Elizabeth was sworn in on November

13, 2018 by Magisterial District

Judge, Scott Massey.

EAST NOTTINGHAM TOWNSHIP CALEN-DAR

BOARD OF SUPERVISOR MEETINGS

7 PM AT TOWNSHIP

• January 7, 2019

• February 12, 2019

• March 12, 2019

• April 9, 2019

• May 14, 2019

• June 11, 2019

• July 9, 2019

• August 13, 2019

• September 10, 2019

• October 8, 2019

• November 12, 2019

• December 10, 2019

East Nottingham Township

158 Election Road Oxford, PA 19363

610-932-8494

www.eastnottingham.org

Township Hours:

Monday—Thursday

8:00 am—4:00 pm

Or by Appointment

Roads Managed By PennDot

(Not East Nottingham Township)

• Baltimore Pike

• Barnsley Chrome

• Christine Road, Rt. 272

• Chrome Road

• Elkdale Road

• Fifth Street

• Forge Road (north side of

Baltimore Pike)

• Hickory Hill Road

• Hopewell Road

• Media Road

• Oxford Road

• Saginaw Road

BE IN THE KNOW